October 23, 2010

Short Still Stinks

(There's Bob Short on the left, the former owner of the expansion Washington Senators who delivered the Senators to Texas after the '71 season. Our sources tell us Craig Sager wore that same jacket on air during the ALCS on TBS. AP File photo, via Daylife.com.)

The question: Is it time for Washington baseball fans to 'forgive' the Texas Rangers?

All is, or should be, forgiven, right? Especially for a new generation of baseball fans who quite possibly don't know Bob Short from Rick Short, or even care to know the difference?

Anyway, the Rangers are heading to the World Series for the first time in franchise history -- a history that includes some dark years as the sad sack Washington Senators -- and they took down the Yankees to get there. Good for them. And now the question is whether Bud Selig's World Series Ratings Nightmare comes to fruition this weekend by way of a Giants victory over the Phillies.

Meanwhile, it's still fun to take shots at Bob Short given the chance -- like at the final Nats game at RFK in 2007, when fans unfurled "Short Still Stinks" banners. But it's time for Washington baseball fans to move on - if they haven't already. Has been since 2005. Maybe that's easy to say for those who weren't around during the years when D.C. went without a baseball team, and even lived for years under the Peter Angelos occupation.

The Washington Senators, at the end of this game, would be no more after 71 years on earth. The deceased, actually, was a pretty good draw, pulling those who had come to give a last cheer for remembered heroes, or, perforce, to wipe away some tears in public.

But for every mourner who made it to the ball park, there were multiple empty seats to testify that 30,000 others had averted their eyes from the scene, shunning it either in indifference to the whole business or in reluctance to give chortling Bob Short one last handout at the highest admission prices in the league.(via Washington Post.com)

But was that Bob Short chortling from beyond the grave when A-Rod struk out for the final out, sending the Senators/Rangers to the World Series? Or was it Shirley Povich weeping?

The original Senators leave DC 'cause they really don't get decent attendance (which at the time was a huge part of team revenue)

The 2nd Senators have horrible attendance from year #1 & leave DC after 10 years of trying to build up the fan base but still can't get enough people into the seats either (their final year in DC, they only drew 655,156 fans - 22nd out of 24 teams in MLB!)

...then the fanbase holds a grudge (to this day) against the guy they showed no interest in?

This is it! The Texas Rangers finally got their ticket to the World Series 2010! and fans start also to get their Texas Rangers Tickets It was no walk in the park. To get to the 2010 World Series the Texas Ranges had to go through a seemingly impossible line of tough baseball teams.

As poorly as the expansion Washington Senators performed and drew at the gate, none of the previous owners of the team thought to move it. Bob Short bought the team specifically to move it to another city and make a quick buck selling it at a higher price to a local owner. That's what he did with the Minneapolis Lakers years before.

If baseball had agreed to sell the Senators to Edward Bennet Williams, I think the history of baseball in Washington would be viewed differently now. I am not saying that EBW would have necessarily brought the Nats a World Series (the foundation for the 1979 and 1983 Oriole pennant winners was laid by previous ownership), but he wouldn't have moved them except perhaps to the suburbs if D.C. didn't build a replacement for RFK in the early 90's. Washington would be as much of a "failed" baseball city as Kansas City, Milwaukee, or Seattle.

I can't forgive Bob Short, but I can forgive the Rangers and in that franchise I see a mirror of what the Nationals can be. If you look at how poorly Bob Short's Rangers drew in 1972, you realize that the Dallas/Fort Worth area was not a hotbed of die-hard baseball fans. Sports was dominated by a very successful NFL team in the area. Sound familiar? If the Rangers who now literally play in the shadow of the Dallas Cowboys can get fans in the Dallas area to care passionately about baseball, I think the Nats can do the same.

And it's already happening. The Nats aren't selling out every game, but as they stay in first place more and more people are coming to Nationals Park to see them play. I was at the game on July 3rd and the game was nearly sold out. I think that if the Nats win the division and make the playoffs, the excitement in this town will be at a fever pitch.